


The Brilliant Winter

by Senora_Luna



Category: Coco (2017)
Genre: Coco Locos Fluff Off 2018, Death, Fluff, Gen, Joyful, Music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-18
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-08-25 08:25:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16657594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Senora_Luna/pseuds/Senora_Luna
Summary: Coco's end becomes a beginning.





	The Brilliant Winter

 

A rasp, like the final leave on an autumnal tree-a last cling to life in the face of a blistering wind urging the transition to the final stage. That was the nature of her breaths, how they echoed in the tiny hospital room to Elena.

Pneumonia.

Doctors had been very frank about it. She’d been thankful for that. And in the last few months she had more of her wits about her than in the last decade combined. At least, that’s how Coco perceived it for herself. The previous ten years she had looked at her remaining daughter with only passing moments of recognition, but now, one look at her torn face, the frailly stitched expression of calm, and she not only recognized her but ached for the suffering in her eyes. It was far worse than the jutting struggle of every breath. Which was saying something.

It all ached now. The hacking coughs which tried to chip away at the layers of phlegm in her lungs left her entire body beaten raw from the inside out. Breathing ached, it rattled every bone against defeated muscles in a stretch of agony. Talking even worse. It was why she had to chose words cautiously, less she run out of strength before the most important were said.

“ _Míja_ …”

“Si Mama?” Elena snapped up, nearing the bed, she was eager-quick to do anything she could, and it was difficult to watch. She could recall when her own Mama Imelda had died. Her worries, her running about, trying to get her anything she could need, trying to tell her every beautiful and grateful thing she could think of, and yet Imelda could only smile. Coco hadn’t understood her calm nor patience about it all. But now it was so clear. The fear was absent-and only the exhaustion, the acceptance remained. That and the pity-for the multiple goodbyes Elena kept attempting, the desire to make her so comfortable.

“You’re such a good daughter…” Coco managed, her mind was so exhausted she lacked the words she longed to stress and ran a hand over her cheek. “…Could you get me some water?”

“Oh-si Mama,” And the relief was present on Elena’s face. To do something, to be free a moment of the obligation of seeing her Mother die. And Coco watched her go, her gaze turning to the only other present in her room. Her great-grandson Miguel. Unlike Elena, his face was not stained with tears, he was calm-contemplative with a lingering sorrow in his smile. But she knew he understood. That was why she hadn’t sent home like many of the others. Luisa and Enrique had a new baby to watch, Berto, Carmen, and Gloria the shop, Abel and Rosa school, and dear Franco some sleep after staying up to comfort Elena for the last few days. Miguel had asked to stay-and she had accepted.

It was months ago, when he sat practicing guitar, singing softly the songs of her childhood to her, Miguel had come out with his entire story of the Land of the Dead. The tale was a secret between them, Miguel knowing no one else would believe-and Coco not about to risk anyone questioning her recent mental clarity further after a small semblance was finally reaccepted. But there was no reason to doubt it. The details of her Papa and Mama he had divulged were too specific when he was born far after they had died. Mama’s singing, Papa’s jokes, and even the mannerisms of the man she had once known as Tio Nesto.

Now it left a kindship between them, as she slipped closer to death, the pair were both aware it was only a change, not a destructive oblivion. Miguel inched closer, taking Elena’s seat at the stool beside Coco. He was blinking back as few tears despite the meager smile.

“Miguel…don’t be scared….”

“Oh-I’m not Mama Coco.” And he sniffled wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. “I’m just…I’m going to miss you.”

“I’m going to miss you Miguel.”

“Your Papa is going to be…to be so happy Mama Coco.” It was a steadier tone, and an added joy at the end of his words.

“Tell me again…Mama was dancing?”

“She did!” And his eyes lit up, straightening up on the chair. “It was amazing Mama Coco, she kept up with de la Cruz like it was nothing-she was so talented.”

“…She had arthritis…she couldn’t…I’m glad.” Mama was no longer in pain. What a wonderful thought-after years in her own wheelchair from aching bones long worn down. Her dancing days had disappeared decades ago and it was one of the greatest sorrows of her life.

“She looked so happy Mama Coco. And the singing-the crowd loved her. Everyone was cheering-they completely forgot about de la Cruz! She was that good. She’s the kind of musician who should have had records-not de la Cruz. And then she and Papa Héctor were hugging, you would have never guessed-I think it’s obvious she loved him still-I bet they’re together again, it was like a movie you know?” Miguel leaned in nearer, trying to garner a reaction. “It wasn’t gross-like the end of the Pedro Infante movies they were just happy and…” there wasn’t a reaction.

Mama Coco’s last reaction for him, at least in this hospital room, was a smile.

 

Socorro Rivera was one of the calmest and most well-adjusted arrivals to the Land of the Dead. That was the gist of the comment her transitional worker, Pilar, was describing in her paperwork. Coco didn’t feel any reason to panic. The was a coldness when she opened her eyes yes, muscle was gone, breath was gone, the heat and weight of sensations of a body were all gone.

But so was the pain. For the first time in years she stood without a wheelchair and could have wept on the spot. Words, tumbled forth with ease, without the wheezing battle to push past phlegm and stinging from her lungs to esophagus. And words! Words! It was like something had cleared the fog which had settled into her mind for the last decade of her life. Her vocabulary, her wits, her memories they flooded with crisp clarity, and empowerment she had not even realized was missing in her life.

It was ecstasy, absolute ecstasy, and the purest freedom that only grew when Pilar informed her “Your husband is on the way.”

Julio had never been a particularly quick man, nor an explosive one, but the stocky skeleton she beheld rushing toward her calling out her name was unmistakable with that square jaw and thick mustache. The embrace was like coming home-and his soft sobs of joy brought back memories from the days Victoria, and then Elena had been born. And oh Victoria-she was close behind. Now Coco was in tears.

From her premature death she retained her height and towered over her Mama. But that didn’t stop Coco from embracing her now literally bony frame so tightly there was an uncomfortable scrape of bones. The agony of burying her child suddenly lifted from her shoulders-the sorrow, the aching of failure, the hole of loneliness it left within her. Victoria telling her softly, how she wasn’t at fault at all.

She lost track of time for how long she was in the midst of an embrace with her husband and daughter, maybe it was only minutes, maybe it was an hour, but when the joyful words, tears, and embraces came to end she lifted her gaze to another pair of skeletons.

An elegant woman, a long orange dress with a shawled top. Beside her a man, who was in tears himself, tall-very tall he towered over her, in a purple vest and striped slacks. If her jaw had yet to fall until now it surely did in this moment. Mama-she was unmistakable in her poise and structure. And the man beside her-like something from a distant dream, the opening of her life’s greatest trauma-her suddenly gone, and now suddenly here: Papa.

Papa-after decades, after so long, he was there-looking at her like she was greatest thing ever grace his presence. She had spent much of her life wondering if she would recognize him or not if somehow he did turn up again in her life. The old tall men she passed in marketplace, those she saw on buses, when taking a vacation in Mexico City, the thought would linger could that have been him? And then it would flitter away, with a chiding voice that wasn’t possible or logical. Maybe he was bald now-maybe he had a full beard. Perhaps he had scars or grown fat, and completely different from the foggy vision of her childhood. How could she recognize him from one very old photograph?

But now-as she stared at the amber brown eyes, that peered from the dark recess of the skeleton before her, a greater force outside her non-present mind and heart affirmed it with as much certainty and confidence as the surest science that the sun would set each day. It rang out from her bones in absolute fact, a memory that stained within her, beyond the fragile tissues and sinews of an aging mind, but in the sturdy, ever enduring marrow of bone.

“…Socorro-…Coco?” He speaks first-with a disbelief, in a voice that opens something she thought long lost within her. And then she moves from her husband and daughter, slowly-then on instinct running. Running for the first time in over twenty years, just has she had every day when he’d come home until the day he didn’t, straight into his open arms. The moment they collide he speaks again-lifting her shrunken frame with ease “Coco!” And it’s a laugh, and sob all at once.

“Papa,” She says the word with sense, the word she non-sense mumbled for years, no longer a question, finally fitting its place in the universe where it was meant to be heard and being answered in the way she so longed.

“I’m here-I’m sorry-oh Coco I’m so sorry, I never wanted to leave you, I-,” He’s babbling he’s lost in the midst of the same joy and catharsis she is which brings out the tears she doesn’t even know if skeletons can cry. And it takes a moment of that crying, of that comfort in his long sturdy arms that steadied her first steps in life, and now do the same in death, before she can speak again. It’s those arms assuring her that this new chapter, this new birth via death, with also have his parental guidance that find her voice.

“I know Papa.” He doesn’t believe her automatically, even as he lowers her and sinks to his knees to continue the hug at her level. “Papa-…Papa I know. Miguel told me.”

“Miguel?” Héctor blinks, catching up to the meaning before his smile widens. “Ay! That good mijo!” a startled laugh, “And you believed him…you remembered-oh Coco,” In an instant he’s planting kisses across her face, “My little Coco you did so well!” They both let out another mixture of laughter and tears. It goes on nearly half an hour, everyone watching no one disturbing, as they point out the pieces of one another they can recall from life; his goatee, her braids, their smiles. And then the new comparisons of the markings chiseled into their sturdy skulls. It’s Imelda, when she nears, who points out how similar they are, as she crouches to join the embrace of her family together again for the first time in nearly a century.

Julio and Victoria join, and amidst answering the questions of the Land of the Dead, and her life during its last years Miguel comes up once more. It’s astounding, and slightly terrifying, to hear the boy’s tale from the other side. He did indeed gloss over just how close to a very premature death he himself had come.

“We were so worried for a few days,” Victoria admits when no one else will, “If you were going to remember Héctor or not.”

“Victoria-of course we knew she would!” Imelda asserts instantly. “She’s a bright woman there was no doubt in my mind-or Héctor’s.” And she places a hand on Héctor’s shoulder. There isn’t any mark of offense nor fear in Coco’s smile.

“Miguel is such a good boy…do you know how he did it?” And it occurs to them, they do not. An exchange of looks, a shrug, and curious raise of brow bones.

“He told you didn’t he?” Julio asks in confusion.

“No…” Coco says with the kind of playful smile she hadn’t had since her mind was this quick, “He sang to me.” There’s a moment of shock on Imelda’s face first, then a kind of sorrowful tenderness as Coco’s name passes her lips in a whisper. Héctor’s grin widens and he looks as though he could burst into tears once again, despite just calming down.

“Music reminded you of me?” He gasps.

“Not just music,” she hesitates if he’ll remember-he must, “our song.”

“Our song.” He repeats, and he does hold in a sniffle, “you remembered our song!” it’s nearly a whisper.

“I never forgot it, even when it was lost in the foggy moments.” Now Coco is holding in her own tears. “I sang it to myself sometimes as a child…when Mama couldn’t hear.” Imelda makes another soft sound, and cups Coco’s cheek bone with such humility and sorrow she could only recall seeing once or twice in life.

“…I’m so sorry míja. I wanted to-,”

“Protect her, and you did.” Héctor jumps in, “If I’d never left in the first place-,”

“Well…Miguel wouldn’t have come and I wouldn’t have died with such peace knowing you were waiting Papa.” Coco smiled running her boned fingers across her Father’s face, tracing the familiar cheekbones and narrow jaw that every part of her had longed to see. And Héctor was overcome again-to no one’s surprise planting another kiss to her forehead.

“Míja you grew up so…so…incredibly.”

“Papa,” She pauses, she can’t believe for a moment this is happening that opportunity is before her to have what she wept for as a child, “I want to hear you sing.”

“Of course, anything,” Héctor sniffles again, the smile on his face glistening even brighter than his golden tooth.

“Our song, everyone can learn it. The real-the right version.”

“If only I’d brought my guitar.” And for a moment he seems nearly shy, self-conscious until Imelda intercedes.

“Since when have you ever needed a guitar to sing?” And that’s all it takes. Héctor lifts his gaze to her once more-and the words of their secret song come forth, and the love his eyes makes Coco feel young again, in a world without sorrow nor worries. No aches nor pains, no arthritis or wheelchairs, nor loneliness or heartbreak. There is only her loving parents, her Father’s soothing voice, and curious joyful wonder to the beginning of each day.

And it occurs to her death has brought her back there again. A child to be cared for, and woman to be loved all at once. The different chapters of her life culminating all at once. The support and partnership of her husband, as Julio lays a hand on her shoulder. The admiration of her daughter as Victoria takes a seat by her side. And of course, the guiding love of her parents as they gaze upon her with utter contentment, a healed, reunited family, as Coco joins in on the song.


End file.
